1. Field of the Invention
The present invention belongs to a technical field of waterproof connectors, and particularly relates to a waterproof connector wherein a plurality of terminals can be inserted into a housing and collectively waterproofed.
2. Related Art
A collectively-waterproofed type connector is known wherein an opening in a housing on its terminal insertion side is sealed with a sealing member and a wired terminal is inserted in each of a plurality of through holes in this sealing member and all the terminals are collectively waterproofed. This collectively-waterproofed type connector has a merit that the connector of this type can be compactified more easily than an individually-waterproofed-cell type connector wherein a housing is provided with a number of cells corresponding to the number of terminals and every individual cell and its terminal are sealed by inserting a sealing member into the cell. When such a collectively-waterproofed type connector is used to make a waterproof connector of which number of poles is smaller than its originally-designed number of poles, each through hole that is not to be used is fitted with a plug to close the hole. When a waterproof connector is provided with separate plugs, it may result in an increase in cost. Moreover, such a work of manually inserting each plug into a through hole is quite troublesome and deteriorates the workability. To solve this problem, some waterproof connectors have been proposed, such as one disclosed in Japanese Patent unexamined publication gazette Heisei 6-36824, wherein a retainer for holding a sealing member in a housing is provided with plugs that can be cut off and a through hole into which a terminal is to be inserted is made open by cutting its plug off the retainer.
As the technique of this proposal is for waterproof connectors having a retainer for holding a sealing member, it can not be applied to a waterproof connector wherein a sealing member is inserted into an opening in a housing on its terminal insertion side as described above. Moreover, parts functioning as plug of the waterproof connector of the proposal are to be formed integrally with the retainer. In this case, the retainer, which is required to have a rigidity sufficient to hold the sealing member, is usually made of a resin, etc., and the work of opening a through hole by cutting a part functioning as plug away from the retainer at a connecting part of the resin, etc. will require a considerable force, and its workability is bad. Furthermore, the need of the two-stage operation of opening a through hole by cutting off a part functioning as plug and inserting a terminal poses a problem of troublesomeness.
The present invention is designed for a collectively-waterproofed type connector wherein a sealing member is inserted into an opening in a housing on its terminal insertion side. One object of the invention is to ease the work of opening a through hole, by integrally connecting covers for closing through holes onto the sealing member and, when necessary, breaking a cover to open a through hole. Another object of the present invention is to make it possible to insert a wired terminal into the waterproof connector with a single touch by making each cover breakable by the pressing force of a terminal to open a through hole.
To accomplish the above-mentioned objects, the waterproof connector of the present invention comprises a housing in which a terminal is to be held, having an opening on its terminal insertion side, a sealing member inserted in the opening of the housing, having a sealing part, which is provided on the outer circumference of the sealing member and airtightly contacts the inner surface of the opening, and having a plurality of through holes, each of said through holes allowing a terminal to pass through and the inner surface of each of said through holes being able to airtightly contact an electric wire, and covers provided for the respective through holes, a circumferential part of each of the covers being integrally connected over the entire circumference to the circumferential wall of the through hole, and the circumferential part being formed into a thickness that can be broken by human force.
When this waterproof connector is to be used, a cover that closes a through hole into which a terminal is to be inserted is pulled outwards away from the sealing member or a wired terminal is forced into a cover that closes a through hole into which a terminal is to be inserted to pull inwards the cover from the sealing member. The cover will be broken at its circumferential part under the effect of the tensile force, shearing force, etc., and the cover will come off the sealing member to open the through hole. Then the wired terminal is inserted into this opened through hole. As a through hole that is not to be inserted with a terminal is closed without any gap by a cover that is integrally connected, the waterproof connector is waterproofed from the outside. As the cover is integrally connected to the sealing member, there is no need of separately providing any plug. This reduces the cost, and as the work of manually inserting plug into the through hole is eliminated, the workability is improved. As the cover is integrally connected with the sealing member, the cover is formed out of rubber, etc. of which tensile strength and shearing strength are lower than those of resins and the like. Thus the work of pulling and breaking the covers can be done more easily, and the required force for the work is smaller than that required for cutting the part functioning as plug away from the retainer, and the workability is improved. When a cover is to be removed by pushing a wired terminal into the cover, the wired terminal can be inserted into the waterproof connector with a single touch.
This waterproof connector is one of the collectively-waterproofed type wherein a sealing member is inserted into an opening in the housing on its terminal insertion side, and as the need of separately providing a plug is eliminated, the cost can be reduced, and as the work of manually inserting a plug into a through hole is eliminated, the workability can be enhanced. Moreover, the workability of opening a through hole can be improved significantly in comparison to the work of cutting off a part functioning as a plug from the retainer. Furthermore, when a cover is to be removed by pushing a wired terminal into the cover, the wired terminal can be inserted into the waterproof connector with a single touch, and the workability of installing the wired terminal is enhanced.